1.A. Field of the Invention
This invention is in the field of cooperative, coordinated, operational integration of multi-device and multi-user combinations; more specifically, the field organizing a potentially varying bag of sensor-computation-messaging-and-display user devices (or ‘nodal elements’) with a second set of operational equipment, both moveable and fixed, to enable their use together in and as a single system; and most specifically, in the field of fixably-mounted coordinating devices which allow, support, and distinguish non-ordered, non-identical, user-and-device varying ‘nodal’ elements while effecting common interconnectivity and interactions, while provisioning electrical power to each connected nodal element from the more capacious source in the operational equipment.
1.B. Description of the Related Art
When people try to coordinate their interactivity they face a conflict between stability and flexibility which is particularly problematic when different, particular operators may want to work with different, particular devices. With the transition from the personal computer, even the laptop, to today's handheld computational and communication devices (cell phones, smartphones, handhelds, and tablets), this conflict has greatly intensified. At one extreme are collections of fungible, identical elements; at the other, collections whose elements are each unique to their specific functioning.
On the first hand, to the extent that the separate must interact, there must exist a commonality. What will distinguish a set of such devices from a jumbled and separably aggregable collection thereof, is the commonality of the terms of their interconnectivity which link only those members, and none others, together—the commonality being any combination of such subordinate necessary but non-sufficient aspects such as a common language, protocol, ownership authorization, or physically-enabling proximity or other like defining connectivity. (All humans may not speak the same language, but we form operative linguistic sets for each separate language; all devices that use CDMA form one set, as do all devices that use Bluetooth. Just as with humans, devices can belong to more than one ‘see’.)
On the other hand, beyond the limits of required interactivity, additional differentiation will allow particular members to meet distinct functional needs and pressures. One user may require the larger display of a tablet, while a second may require the greater carrying ease of a smartphone—yet both may wish to interact as to the placement and movement of a particular pallet of goods, within the same distribution center. Just as both left and right hands have five digits with thumbs pointing ‘inward’ when at rest—but the left thumb points right, and the right thumb, left—yet both hands may be used to move an object too heavy for a single arm's strength.
Commonality and differentiation have complementary problems; and the range of variation can extend from having fungible devices (each entirely identical to all other units in the set) to entirely unique devices (each particular to one specific operator/location/function). The more common individual members of a set are, the less organization is needed during operational use; but the more restricted will be the potential variations (if everyone has to carry the same tablet, its specifications will limit what any one can do). The more varied individual members of a set are, the more organization is needed during operational use (to avoid sending a device/operator to do a task which that particular device is not configured for); but the less restricted will be the potential variations (many more tasks may be attainable across the entire collection by sending out those device/operator pairings uniquely suited to the task constraints).
The complexity and cost of managing an organized collection is generally reciprocally related to the complexity and cost of changing it. A more uniform collection is simpler to manage, but more difficult and costlier to change (since everything which is uniform must be changed together). In contrast a more diverse collection, while more difficult to manage (since substitutions, or other changes, must be tailored), generally is easier and cheaper to change (since adaptations already present can be reordered or else can be handled piecemeal). Going from English to metric measurements in a shipping operation which has only handled the first, is much harder and more expensive than doing the same for an international shipping operation already accustomed to dual measurements.
Two general classes of organized collections are vehicle-based transportation operations, and manufactory operations. The first may incorporate any or all of humans (porters, stockers, stevedores, whether with or without hand tools or unpowered, dumb, trolleys), and any set of operational equipment such as forklifts, flatbeds (with or without tractor elements), conveyers, cranes, and the separable ‘planes, trains and automobiles’—all working with and in sourcing, warehousing, and destination locations. The second may incorporate a set of production lines, each comprising both operational equipment (individual machine tools with transformational and sensory capabilities) and human operators, where sub-steps of transformative operations (shaping, fitting, joining, finishing, packaging, and labeling) turn the production line's source inputs into a flow of finished goods or completed orders.
The prior art has principally focused on an enforced uniformity and ‘top-down’ or ‘command-oriented’ infrastructures, that is, organizations which demanded uniformity and fungibility of the machinery and operators. While suitable for mass production and bulk transportation, it imposes a high and fixed overhead (in identicality of machinery, training, process flows, ownership, and controls). It also constrained or eliminated (as unprofitably complex and costly) flexibility and adaptivity.
Additionally, the prior art focused on employer-provided and uniform collections because the producers and suppliers of these liked getting customers ‘locked-in’, as this lowered the cost to the producers and suppliers of on-going adaptation to diversity and created a greater barrier to competitive entry, the larger the cooperative organization became.
One of the chief problems with the prior art was the assumption that all aspects of the commonality had to be identical in their presumption of an operative hierarchy, particularly as this seemed to match the existing ‘standard’ for communication, computational, and electrical power provisioning and control. There is a presumption that there is a centralizing, dominant, element which commands and controls all three of these functions, however much it may delegate the operative minutia to ‘subordinate’ elements.
This also matches the very human, and most common social assumptions, about coordinated operations—that they require a hierarchy of leaders and supporters. Yet the reality is that both devices and humans, inasmuch as they have different capabilities, can often devise—particularly on an ad-hoc, varying basis—more effective interoperative groupings by sharing and coordinating the ‘leadership’ according to the relative strengths and demands upon the individual members; that there are times when for each of several different functions (computation, communication, power provisioning) the best and most effective organization could see three disparate ‘leaders’—particularly so, if the collection is one of heterogeneous units with differing capabilities.